Sliding movement latch assembly for window or the like



Aug. 26, 1969 s. c. REYNAUD 3,

SLIDING MOVEMENT LATCH ASSEMBLY FOR WINDOW OR THE LIKE Filed Aug. 2. 1967 g ijf INVENTOR.

64270167 6'. Fcyflau United States Patent SLIDING 4 Claims ABSTRACT OF THE DISCLOSURE There is herein disclosed a latch assembly for preventing movement between relatively movable members, such as the upper and lower windows of a double hung window unit, including a latch slidably movable along a support surface on one member into and out of latching engagement with a keeper means fixed to the other member.

Summary The latch of the present invention is of new and improved design, is mounted on the one member in a new and improved manner, and is operable in a new and improved manner. The latch comprises a unitary onepiece latch housing of hollow rectangular box-like form having one open side which is placed face down on the support surface of the one member to enclose a spring retaining means fastened to the support surface for holding the latch housing on the one member for sliding movement between a latched position and an unlatched position. The spring retaining means is a unitary one-piece member which is completely concealed beneath and within the latching housing. All fastening means for securing the spring retaining means to the one member and all connections between the spring retaining means and the latch housing are also completely concealed beneath and within the latch housing. Assembly and disassembly of the latch housing relative to the spring retainer means requires special knowledge and a special tool.

Brief description of the drawings Referring now to the drawings wherein an illustrative embodiment of the invention is shown in connection with a double hung window unit:

FIGURE 1 is a side elevational view of a latch assembly incorporating the inventive features;

FIG. 2 is a cross-sectional view of the assembly shown in FIG. 1 taken along the lines 2-2 of FIG. 1;

FIG. 3 is a side elevational view partially in section of the apparatus of FIGS. 1 and 2;

FIG. 4 is a plan view of the apparatus shown in FIG. 3;

FIG. 5 is a sectional view taken along the lines 55 of FIG. 2; and

FIG. 6 is a side elevational view of an assembly tool for assembling and disassembling the latch assembly of the present invention.

Detailed description Referring now to the drawings, FIGS. 1 and 2, a latch assembly 10 is mounted, for example, on one of a pair of meeting rails 12, 13, which, in the illustrative embodiment, take the form of a head bar of a lower sash 17 and a sill bar 19 of an upper sash 21 of a double hung window of conventional design.

The latch assembly includes a slidably mounted latch housing 23 which may be provided with an actuating handle 25. Housing 23 is of generally rectangular boxlike construction and is generally U-shaped in cross-section. A central elongated cavity 27 extends the length 3,463,531 Patented Aug. 26, 1969 ice of the housing and is enclosed by the side walls of housing 23 and by the head bar 15 of the lower sash 17. Re taining means in the form of a pair of oppositely spaced inwardly extending lugs 29, 31, FIG. 4, are integrally formed within the cavity on the side walls of the housing at a central position and extend longitudinally a relatively short distance sufi'lcient to provide needed strength and spring engaging surfaces as will be hereinafter described in detail. The ends of the lugs are rounded to facilitate assembly and disassembly. A pair of opposite longitudinally extending support shoulders 33, 35 are formed at the bottom of the latch housing adjacent the lugs 29, 31 to provide clearance at both ends of the housing between the housing and support surface 37. The clearance is exaggerated in the drawing for purposes of illustration. Support shoulders 33, 35 are adapted to slidably support the latch housing 23 on the top surface 37 of the meeting rail 12 with the ends 38 and 39 of the housing spaced above the surface 37 which facilitates assembly and disassembly as well as concealing any scratching or marring of the top of the support surface 37 due to the sliding movement of the housing.

A keeper engaging cam flange 40 is integrally formed centrally on one side of the housing. Cam flange 40 is adapted to be slidably engaged and disengaged relative to a cam flange 41 on a keeper 42 mounted on the member or rail 13 as illustrated in FIG. 5.

The latch housing is slidably retained on meeting rail 12 by spring retaining means in the form of a unitary onepiece retainer member 44, FIGS. 3 and 4. The retainer member comprises a base portion 46 and a spring finger portion 47. Member 44 is formed from one piece of heattreated spring steel material which may be stamped out of sheet stock. Base portion 46 comprises a reversely bent bottom plate section 48 which extends beneath and generally parallel to an upper plate section 50. Flange portions 49, 51, FIG. 2, are bent upwardly from the bottom plate section 48 and located in abutting supporting engagement with the underside of the upper plate section 50 so as to form the base portion 46 in rigid boxlike form. The width of the spring finger portion 47 and the upper section 50 are slightly less than the width of the cavity in housing 23 so as to provide guide surfaces 52, 54, FIG. 4, for the side walls of the housing and slide surfaces 56, 58 engageable with the lugs 29, 31. The width of the bottom section 48 is less than the width between the lugs and the outer side surfaces of the flange portions 49, 51, FIG. 4, which are spaced inwardly from the lugs. Fastening rneans for securing the retainer member are provided in the form of aligned fastening holes 60, 62 which receive suitable fastening devices 64, 66, FIG. 3, secured to member 12.

Spring finger portion 47 extends beyond the base portion and is bent downwardly from the plane of the upper plate section 40. A rounded cam terminal portion 68 is reduced in width relative to the adjacent portions of the spring finger to permit the lugs 29, 31 to be associated with and disassociated from the surfaces 56, 58 during assembly and disassembly. As may be seen in FIG. 3, the bottom edge 69 of the terminal portion terminates adjacent the surface 37 well below the upper surfaces of the lugs 29, 31. Furthermore, portions of the spring finger 67 intermediate the base portion and the terminal portion are also located below the upper surface of the lugs to provide for resilient engagement therewith as the housing is moved to the right in FIG. 3.

In order to assemble the latch housing 23 on the retainer member 44, the housing is placed in an extreme righthand position, as viewed in FIG. 3,. with the left end wall 38 of the housing on top of the upper plate section 50. The right end wall 39 rests on surface 37 so that the housing is tilted. A tool is then inserted under the housing and into engagement with the spring finger 47 which is lifted upwardly within the latch housing cavity and then forced over the lugs 29, 31 by moving the housing to the left. As the latch housing is moved along the spring finger, the housing is held in the tilted position with one end riding along the top of the upper plate section 50 of the base portion. When the end of the housing moves over the end of the base portion 46 opposite the spring finger 47, the latch housing is snapped into parallel relationship relative to the surface 37 with abutment surfaces 33, 35 supporting the housing in parallel relationship with the top surface 37.

After assembly, the latch housing is slidably movable back and forth between latched and unlatched positions. The length of the base portion 46 and spring finger 47 retaining means is related to the length of the latch housing cavity so as to limit movement of the latch housing between extreme positions at which end walls 38, 39 abut the ends of the retaining means and prevent inadvertent disassociation of the latch housing and the retaining means by movement of lugs 29, 31 beyond the spring finger. In the unlatched position, cam flange 40 is moved away from keeper 42 to permit relative movement of the members 12, 13. When moved to the right in FIG. 3 to the unlatched position, lugs 29, 31 are brought into gradually increasing frictional retaining engagement with surfaces 56, 58 beneath spring finger 47. Spring finger 47 engages and then rides on top of the cam lugs 29, 31 to exert a downwardly directed bias on the latch housing forcing abutment surfaces 33, 35 into frictionally retained engagement with the top surface 37 so that the latch housing is securely held in the unlatched position to prevent rattling. As the latch housing is moved from the unlatched position to the latched position, cam lugs 29, 31 are moved out from under the spring finger and beneath the upper plate section 50. The distance from the top surface 37 to the bottom surface of upper plate section 50 is related to the distance between the top surface of the lugs and abutment surfaces 33, 35 so as to provide for a certain amount of relative movement between the latch housing and the member 12 during latching association of the cam flanges 40 and 41. Thus, as the latch housing is moved to the latched position and the cam flange 40 is brought into camming engagement with the cam flange 41 of the keeper 42, a certain amount of play is provided until full engagement (not shown) causes the latch housing to rock slightly about the longitudinal axis which brings the inside abut ment 35 onto surface 37 and outside lug 29 into engagement with the underside of plate portion 50 to secure the latch housing in the latched position. It will be understood that the clearances shown are merely illustrative and not to scale.

It may be observed that when the latch housing is mounted on the retainer member, all fastening and attaching means are completely enclosed and the latch housing appears to be permanently secured on the window. In fact, the latch housing cannot be removed except by means of a special tool 70, as shown in FIG. 6. Disassembly is obtained by reversing the order of assembly previously described. The latch housing is moved to an extreme righthand position, as viewed in FIG. 3, with end wall 38 adjacent base portion 46. The housing is then lifted by inserting portion 80 of the tool between the housing and surface 37 and rotating the tool to raise the bottom surface of the end wall 38 of the housing above the upper plate section 50. The housing is then moved slightly to the right and supported in a tilted arrangement with the end wall 38 resting on the upper section 50 and the other end wall 39 resting on the surface 37. Portion 80 of the tool is then inserted beneath the spring finger 47 with portion 82 receiving the adjacent wall of the housing and permitting rotation of the tool relative to the housing to move the spring finger upwardly above the cam lugs at which time the housing is slidably moved to the right to disengage the cam lugs from beneath the spring finger. Countersunk fastening means (not shown) may be utilized in place of the raised head fasteners so that the latch housing is more easily moved along the upper plate section 50 of the retainer member until it is snapped over the end of the housing portion. If raised head fastening means are utilized, as shown, the latch housing is easily slidably movable until the end wall of the housing comes into engagement with one of the heads. At such time, the assembly tool is again utilized to raise the end of the housing upwardly against the bias of the spring finger sufliciently to enable the end of the latch housing to clear the head. It will be apparent that the tool is utilized in a similar manner for both assembling and disassembling operations.

Since the inventive features may be variously embodied in latch assemblies of the illustrative type hereinbefore described, it is intended that the appended claims be given a scope encompassing alternative embodiments except insofar as limited by the prior art.

I claim:

1. A latch assembly for latching a first member that is relatively movable with respect to a second member comprising keeper means adapted to be affixed to said first member, a box-like latch housing having an open side adapted to be slidably mounted on and covered by said second member, cam means on said latch housing movable from a latching position in engagement with said keeper means to an unlatched position spaced from said keeper means, lug means positioned within said latch housing, and retainer means adapted to be fixedly positioned on said second member and located within said latch housing and associated with and adapted to receive said lug means and slidably support said latch housing for movement between the latching position and the unlatched position, said retainer means comprising a onepiece box-like structure having a first plate portion adapted to be affixed to a substantially flat surface on said second member and a second plate portion positioned in spaced relationship to said first plate portion, a spring finger extending longitudinally from said second plate portion and resiliently engaging and exerting a holding force on said lug means when said latch housing is in the unlatched position.

2. The assembly of claim 1 in which said lug means gradually engages and moves said spring finger as said latch housing is moved from the latching position to the unlatched position.

3. In combination with relatively movable members such as the upper and lower sash of a window or the like, a latch assembly for latching one of said members with respect to the other of said members comprising a keeper aflixed to one of said members, a substantially flat slide surface provided on the other of said members adjacent said keeper, a box-like latch housing having a central cavity and an open side slidably mounted on said substantially fiat slide surface and being slidably movable therealong in a transverse direction relative to the direction of movement of said members between a latched position and an unlatched position, a cam coupled to said latch housing and adapted to engage said keeper in the latched position, lug means positioned on the inner walls of said latch housing and extending into said cavity, a generally longitudinally extending flat spring means attached to said substantially flat surface within said cavity,

said lug means engaging said spring means and holding said latch housing on said flat surface in the unlatched position, and said spring means being resiliently deflected by said lugs during movement of said latch housing from the latched position to the unlatched position and exerting a restraining force on said lugs in the unlatched position, and said spring means being resiliently deflected having a first plate portion affixed to said substantially flat slide surface and a second plate portion positioned in spaced relationship to said first plate portion, and a spring finger extending beyond said second plate portion and being deflectable away from said substantially flat slide surface to exert a resilient bias on said latch housing through said lugs.

4. The combination of claim 3 and further comprising assembly means by which a tool may be inserted between said substantially flat slide surface and said latch housing to lift said spring finger and release said lugs to permit assembly and disassembly of said latch housing on said spring means.

6 References Cited UNITED STATES PATENTS FOREIGN PATENTS 628,962 10/1961 Canada.

RICHARD E. MOORE, Primary Examiner 

